“Widdengate!” Selena said with a wince. “How far beyond our lines is that now?”
Rhenkin sighed as he shook his head. “At this point it’s hard to say who holds what. The fae destroyed Carik’s Fort before the Bjornmen ever reached it.”
“So you have no idea what we’d be heading into?” Selena burst out. Rhenkin looked at her calmly, a raised eyebrow asking if the words had been question or statement.
“We do have scouts out there, your majesty,” he reminded her.
Selena nodded at him as she pushed the chair back and went to the map hung on the wall. She’d had it commissioned shortly after the Bjornmen invasion and the detail was something she appreciated every time she examined it. “We have troops en route from Savarel, Celstwin, and what’s left of Rentrew’s forces. Surely it’s just a matter of pushing east?” she asked.
Rhenkin joined her at the map. “Against a normal enemy I’d agree with you, your majesty. These fae don’t appear to wish to play by the rules, however.”
“Explain,” she said in a curt voice.
Rhenkin glanced at the map again, perhaps collecting his thoughts. “If it were simply the Bjornmen we faced your proposal would make perfect sense, a push east with these troops might well drive the Bjornmen from our shores. These fae though, we’ve yet to find a way to fight them effectively. I’m not sure how well we’d fare against both the fae and the Bjornmen.”
“The Bjornmen may well be less of a threat than you think, Rhenkin,” she said, peering closely at the map. “From what the woman, Miriam, tells me, their stronghold in the Eastern Reaches has been levelled by the fae. The ships they have returning from Celstwin are likely to find little but rubble.”
“Interesting,” Rhenkin mused. “Though it doesn’t change the situation all that much. If the fae can take Carik’s Fort, Kavtrin, and Rimeheld in this short time…”
“Rimeheld?” Selena interrupted.
“The name of their fallen city,” Rhenkin explained.
“Then they are a significant force and moving around at will,” Selena finished for him. “Damn it, Rhenkin, how do we counter an army we can’t hurt?”
Rhenkin frowned as he looked at Obair. “We hurt them at your glade. Some of us did anyway.”
Obair grunted his agreement. “Those that weren’t overwhelmed by them, yes.”
“We know iron will hurt the fae…” Rhenkin stopped, staring into space.
“And?” Selena prompted him.
“Sorry, your grace.” He grimaced. “Your majesty,” he corrected himself. “The girl from Widdengate, the one who concocted the notion of trapping the satyr we captured. She managed to lead a group of survivors from Carik’s Fort to here. Apparently they were attacked numerous times by the fae and gave quite the accounting of themselves. I only have half the story, but…” He shrugged. “I believe it would be worth speaking to her.”
“Do,” Selena told him.
“Me, your majesty?”
Selena raised her eyebrows. “The last I looked, Rhenkin, you were the one wearing the uniform.”
“I merely thought—”
She tapped her lips with one finger, thinking. “No, Rhenkin,” she told him. “I’m not convinced of that at all. I still have your captive Bjornmen to speak with. Surely you can manage to speak to a peasant girl.”
“As you wish, your majesty.” Rhenkin agreed.
“My majesty does,” Selena said with a broad smile. “As to the other matter concerning you and I, I believe it is something we should discuss at length but now is not the time.”
“I rather thought you had made your feelings clear,” Rhenkin told her stiffly, ignoring the perplexed expression Obair was failing to conceal as he looked back and forth between them.
“I don’t believe so, Rhenkin, no,” she replied with a toss of her head. “I don’t believe you understand my feelings on the matter at all.”
“If I may, your majesty,” Obair butted in. “If you plan to speak with Rhenkin’s Bjornmen you may find it useful to take Ylsriss and Joran along.”
She looked at him blankly.
“The two Bjornmen who escaped from the Realm of Twilight,” Obair explained. “Devin and I brought them here with us. Joran will be able to translate for you easily enough.”
Selena sucked on her lip. “Do you think they could be trusted?”
“I think they recognise the fae are far more important that the childish squabbles of two nations, your majesty,” Obair told her, meeting her eyes.
“Why do I get the impression I’ve just been told off?” She asked the room.
“I only meant, your majesty…”
Selena stopped him with a shake of the head. “If it was a scolding then it was probably deserved. If not, then it shows I probably needed one. I’ll take them with me, Obair.”
***
The night air was cool. It was closer to cold, if he was honest, but it was good to have a moment to himself. There had just been so much going on it was hard to process it all.
“Devin? Is that you?”
The sound of the footstep had him turning before his name was called but his groan at being disturbed cut off as he caught sight of her.
“Erinn?”
She ran to him, five darting steps that pulled up short as if she were suddenly unsure of herself. “I wasn’t sure it was you. I’m not used to your hair yet. You never really did tell me what happened?”
His fingers reached for it without him thinking. It had grown coarse over the weeks, almost wiry in texture. He shrugged. “It’s a long story.” She looked different somehow, older perhaps. No, now he looked at her it wasn’t really age, it was more something about the way she carried herself.
“You never really told me what happened at Carik’s Fort either, you know?”
“Carik’s Fort was attacked.” She gave him a curious look. “Didn’t you hear about that?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been away, from just about everyone actually. I’m still catching up.” He looked out over the wall again, turning only halfway so his position was an invitation. “They won’t be able to push much further. I hear that the king’s armies are finally on the move.”
“It wasn’t the Bjornmen, Devin,” Erinn said in a soft voice as she joined him at the wall. She didn’t look at him as she spoke but stared out into the darkness beyond the lights of the town.”
Devin stiffened “The fae? Against an entire fortress? What happened?”
She glanced at him and her expression made him regret the question before she started to speak. “They did what they always do. They tore down the walls and slaughtered us until the streets ran red. I only survived because of someone brave enough to shove me under one of the huts. Even then I don’t know how they didn’t find us.”
He probably shouldn’t ask the question, knowing it would be better to stop. He asked it anyway. “Us?”
She shrugged “A girl, Kel. She was the first I found anyway. After that I found Samen, and then Fornn and Jarik joined us once Samen stopped them robbing us. The others drifted in as we made our way here.”
“It sounds like I’ve just been robbed of one hell of a story,” he said with a crooked smile.
She shrugged and gave a small smile of her own. “You get nothing for nothing. You tell me what happened to you and I’ll tell you my story.”
He pushed back from the wall. “Telling stories can be thirsty work, Samen taught us both that. Why don’t we go and find something to drink?” He hefted his purse meaningfully.
She raised he eyebrows at the clinking sound. “Where did you get that lot?”
“Rhenkin’s man, Kennick, gave it to me.” He grinned. “I don’t think they really know what to do me at the moment.”
“More fool them,” she said with a look that had Devin wondering which meaning she’d intended.
He coughed and looked into the night breeze to cool hot cheeks, hoping she hadn’t noticed the blush. “Shall we then?”
She gave him another look, a smile that said she was laughing as much at herself as she was at him. It was a look he remembered from Widdengate. He’d seen it on her face whenever she been flirting with one of the boys from the village or trying to get something she wanted. He extended an arm and she took it easily and they made their way out of the palace and down into the town. She chatted lightly, filling the holes in the conversation that he left as he tried to decide which one it was. Did she just want the story or was she flirting?
The Half Moon was possibly the finest inn in Druel, catering to the elite and the toadies that clustered around the palace. Devin weighed his chances as they approached, and the large man on the door looked at him appraisingly. Erinn was busy looking at a tavern on the other side of the road. Devin cocked his head with a raised eyebrow, making the motion a silent question. The doorman’s flicked to the purse tied to his belt and a smile bloomed on his lips as he shrugged. Druel was too small a town to turn down custom by the looks of things. He waved them inside as Erinn looked at him in surprise.
“Here?”
“Why not?” Devin shrugged, enjoying the look on her face. “My coin is as good as any other.”
They were settled in at a table set in a bay window. Secluded enough for private conversation but close enough to benefit from the fire. Devin ordered a bottle of wine at random, hoping it wouldn’t be foul. He watched as Erinn sampled it. She was acting the part as much as he was, at least he hoped she was. She couldn’t know much more about wine than he did and that wasn’t much. He watched as she swirled the wine in the glass, admiring the colour before she sniffed at it, and then tasted.
Devin’s anxiety was mounting until she gave a smile of approval and the serving man poured for them both; leaving the bottle, and the responsibility with Devin.
“How did you learn so much about wine?” he asked, as soon as the man was out of earshot. “I was just hoping it didn’t taste awful.”
“I don’t.” She shrugged with one shoulder, letting her red hair tumble down her neck. “I was playing along as much as you were.”
“What was all this about then?” he asked, swirling the wine in his glass.
“I copied the couple behind you, in the corner.” She nodded towards the bar and laughed at his expression as he glanced back and raised his glass to her in mock salute.
“Not bad for a couple of hayseeds, are we?”
“We, sir, are the finest Widdengate has to offer,” she corrected him with an arch look and touched his glass with her own before taking a sip. “Now, before you fuddle me with this wine, I believe you promised me a story.”
She was a good listener, prompting him when it was needed at the beginning, and coaxing the details out of him when he faltered, but then sitting wide-eyed as the tale unfolded around them. She gasped when he spoke of Ylsriss and Joran but yet had been sober and calm when he’d talked about his hunting the satyr.
“And this?” she asked, reaching out to touch his hair. Her fingertips brushed his face as they drifted down to the table and he stumbled over his words as she smiled at him with mischief dancing in her eyes.
“The stones at Lillith’s cottage,” Devin explained. “When I reached for the histories, they took something from me. It was like they were sucking the heat, the very life out of me.”
“The histories of the Droos,” Erinn breathed. “We’re lost in a fairytale you realise?”
Devin nodded. Her words had been light, meant as a joke, but that didn’t hide the truth in them. “I know, and we’re searching for a happy ending.” He shook his head and took a deep drink before topping up their glasses. “Still, we’re here. We’ve had better luck than most. Your father must be in his element working with Rhenkin’s smiths.”
Her face fell. “He’s not…” she faltered.
“I’m sorry,” Devin said with a frown. “I just assumed he’d be working with them.”
Her gaze sank to the table as she spoke in small voice. “He’s not here, Devin. He fell when the fae came to Carik’s Fort.”
Devin closed his eyes, cursing himself for the worst kind of idiot. “I’m sorry, Erinn. I didn’t think.”
She nodded. “It’s okay.” She still looked down at the table. The mood was broken. They’d been dancing on the ice that held them from the reality of their lives and now he’d come blundering in, stamping about in hobnail boots. Harlen had been more than just her father, though that alone was bad enough. In a way he represented all of Widdengate. They’d avoided talking it until his mention had brought it all home to them both. Widdengate, their families and friends, it was all gone.
“I found my mother,” he said, trying to shift the conversation.
She frowned at him, confused by the shift in conversation and the statement. “Hannah?”
“No,” he shook his head. “My real mother, Miriam.”
She blinked. “What? How?”
“She was here when we arrived apparently,” he told her. “She came in with some Bjornmen they’d captured.”
“So she just wandered in out of nowhere? Where has she been your whole life?” Her anger rose from nowhere and she leaned forward with palms pressed to the table.
“The fae had her, Erinn,” he told her. “If I try hard enough I can almost remember it. The creature in the woods, the stone circle. Miriam was taken by the first of the fae in this world in thousands of years. In a way, I suppose, all of this began with that.”
“I hate them,” she said quietly. There was a venom in her voice that made him sit back but she carried on before he could speak. “They’ve taken so much from us. They’re evil in a way I don’t even have words for.”
Devin nodded, reaching for his drink. There wasn’t much he could say to that.
“I hate what they do to us too,” she told him, ignoring him as he offered her the bottle. “We’re so convinced that we can’t beat them, that they’re better than us, that most of us don’t even try. We cower down like mice in a field, hoping the owl won’t spot us.”
“What else can we do?” Devin asked her. “I’ve killed satyr but a true fae… Well you heard what happened at Obair’s glade. Most of the men with us wouldn’t even fire their arrows.”
“I’ve fought them too, you’ve seen me fight them,” she said, looking up at him from where she’d tipped her face towards the table. “They can be killed the same as anything else, we just need to realise that. That’s the thing with the fae. We’re so convinced they’re so powerful that we couldn’t hope to challenge them. The truth is, with a handful of this,” she reached for the string around her neck that ran to the pouch she wore, “they’re nothing.”
“You’ve changed,” he told her, smiling into the face of her angry green eyes.
She wrapped a lock of hair around her finger, “Says you.”
That brought a smile to both of them.
“You have though,” he insisted. “You’re not the girl I knew at Widdengate.”
She sniffed. “That girl was a fool.”
“She was,” he agreed. “She had lousy taste in men too.”
She laughed then, a genuine laugh that stole the tension away from the table. “Yes, well, that seems to be improving.”
He blinked. “Is that so?”
“Pour me another drink and we’ll see,” she said, her eyes dancing.
***
Klöss watched as Tristan paced. Three steps to the wall, turn, and then another ten until he turned again, doing a slow circuit of the cell.
“If you’re trying to make me dizzy you’re going to have to walk faster,” Klöss muttered, drawing a snort from Gavin who sat in the straw beside him.
“You are not funny, Klöss,” Tristan told him, sagging down to the floor. “When you suggested speaking to the Anlish about the keiju this is not what I was expecting.”
“I wasn’t exactly expecting a feast in our honour myself,” Klöss told him, “but I take your point. Being locked up like this wasn’t what I’d hoped f
or but I can’t really blame them. What would we have done to them if they’d come walking into Rimeheld?”
Tristan grunted. “At least you are being taken out and spoken to. We have been caged for weeks.”
“At least we’re not chained to the walls.” Klöss shrugged.
Tristan didn’t bother to comment.
“Have they even spoken to you about the trels?” Gavin asked him.
“Some,” Klöss said with a glance at the thick wooden door. “Not enough. I don’t know how much their man, Rhenkin, believes. I don’t think he trusts me or trusts that this isn’t some ploy. I can’t blame him, I suppose.”
“They think this is a trick of some kind?” Gavin scoffed. “So first we get ourselves taken captive, and then we conquer them from inside their own cells?”
Klöss gave the man a wry smile. “I think that’s the plan, yes.”
Gavin grinned back. “Let’s get started then. This cell is beginning to bore me.”
Klöss glanced over at Tristan but the man was ignoring them, watching the door with his head tilted to one side, listening.
“What…” Klöss began but stopped at a muffled clang from the iron grates that lay in the hallways beyond the door. He raised an eyebrow at Tristan but the expression was lost in the dim light and his eyes turned back to the door as a grating came from the lock.
The men didn’t speak as they came in. One reached for him and put the chains on his wrists as the other held a club ready. It was the same thing they’d done every time they’d come for him lately and Klöss shook his head in silent amusement. Where was he going to go, even if he could overpower them?
Tristan and Gavin watched in silence as he was led away. He managed to meet Gavin’s eyes once but the brief nod said everything there was to say.
It was only moments before he realised they were taking him somewhere new. He was pushed roughly into an empty cell before a bucketful of shockingly cold water was tossed over him, followed by another. His angry question must have shown on his face as one of the guards muttered something to him before holding his nose and grimacing in a pantomime of disgust whilst pointing at him.
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